Scotland’s junior doctors have voted to accept a pay offer from the Scottish government. The deal will include a 12.4% pay increase for 2023/24. This is in addition to a wage rise of 4.5% for 2022/23 with ministers also promising talks on future pay increases. Junior doctors had been planning to take strike action before the latest pay offer was made by Scottish ministers. The deal will cost the Scottish government £61.3m and will be met from existing budgets. As part of the agreement, further talks to “make credible progress” towards full pay restoration to 2008 levels are planned. These will see the rate of inflation used as the guarantee as the floor for each round of negotiations in the next three years. Scottish ministers have also committed to agreeing a new pay review mechanism with junior doctors.
The result of the consultative vote of BMA Scotland members saw 81.64% vote in favour of the offer with a turnout of 71.24%. In England, junior doctors have taken part in five rounds of industrial action this year as a result of an ongoing pay dispute. Health Secretary Michael Matheson said: “This is the single biggest investment in junior doctor pay since devolution, and maintains our commitment to make Scotland the best place in the UK for junior doctors to work and train. “Due to the meaningful engagement we have had with trade unions, we have avoided any industrial action in Scotland – the only part of the UK to avoid NHS strikes.”
Junior doctors had been due to strike between 12 and 15 July after previously rejecting a 14.5% pay rise over two years. The new offer saw this action postponed. The union had previously called for a rise of 23.5% – the amount they say junior doctors have seen their pay fall in real terms since 2008. Junior doctors are fully-qualified medics who are not speciality staff doctors, consultants or GPs. They make up 44% of the doctors in the NHS in Scotland.
Welcome Progress
Dr Chris Smith, chairman of the BMA’s Scottish Junior Doctor Committee, said the agreement was a “serious, welcome commitment to ensuring that pay for junior doctors in Scotland is restored to a fair level”. He added: “While we accept that this year’s 12.4% uplift makes only a small amount of real terms progress towards fully reversing the 28.5% pay cut we have received since 2008, it represents a start. “Earlier this year junior doctors in Scotland said enough is enough – they were clear that they will no longer stand aside and accept any more sub-inflationary pay awards year after year.”
